Heliophysics - Space Weather Topics

A new NASA-funded study details what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a 'super solar flare' followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. Some of the conclusions might surprise you.

Researchers are about to subject a fake astronaut complete with blood cells and simulated human tissue to an artificial solar flare. How the unlucky volunteer emerges from the radiation storm will reveal for the first time how much of a threat severe solar flares pose to Astronautsen route to The Moonand Mars.

It might not be obvious to the naked eye, but the sun is a variable star. A sensor slated for launch onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory will probe the sun's "sneaky variability" with better time and spectral resolution than ever before.

An interplanetary shock wave from a solar coronal mass ejection is expected to pass our planet this Thursday. The disturbance could trigger aurora at middle-latitudes. This story includes animations of the CME and associated solar flares, as well as observing tips for aurora borealis.

In the past, predicting the onset of a geomagnetic storm was difficult. Forecasters couldn't say with much precision how long it would take for a solar coronal mass ejection to reach Earth. Now scientists have created a model that reliably forecasts the arrival of these billion-ton gas clouds in the vicinity of our planet.

NASA's IMAGE satellite, scheduled for launch on March 25, will revolutionize our understanding of Earth's magnetosphere. Space Weatherdata from the innovative spacecraft will be freely available to the public on the web and elsewhere. NASA scientists are developing plans for down-to-earth listening stations that HAM radio operators can build to capture the data themselves.